250 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ticeship, or learned a trade; and training to the practice of any art, 

 is essentially apprenticeship, and not education ; and this brings me 

 to the second point. 



To be educated for any profession or pursuit, a man must not only 

 be familiar with the execution of its details, but he must understand 

 its theory, and be familiar with its guiding principles. We fre- 

 quently hear agriculture spoken of as a science of itself; but to me 

 it seems that this is not an accurate mode of expressing the idea 

 intended, and I would rather consider it as an art depending upon, 

 or closely related to, very many branches of physical science, and 

 which need to be understood in order to secure the most successful 

 practice. Some of these we will notice, and the first is, the Science 

 of Mechanics. So far as cultivation is concerned, and this is a most 

 important part of agriculture, it is chiefly mechanical. The pulver- 

 ization of the soil, the deposition of seed, the gathering of the ripened 

 harvest, are bodily labors, requiring only a low degree of intellec- 

 tual effort ; but the science of mechanics teaches us regarding the 

 laws of motion, and the application of power, obedience to which 

 secures easy accomplishment of labor, while the violation of its prin- 

 ciples, inflicts unnecessary and exhausting fatigue upon man and 

 beast. 



In a country like ours, of cheap land and dear wages, there is 

 nothing of more vital importance to successful agriculture, than 

 economy of labor. We can see that the introduction of steam and 

 machinery have wrought a complete revolution in many branches of 

 business ; we see already some saving upon the farm, by the intro- 

 duction of the cast iron plow, the cultivator, the horse-rake, mowing 

 machine, threshing machine, and other improved implements, and 

 we know that there is scope for vast improvement, both in the 

 machinery now in use, and the farther substitution of brute or other 

 force in place of human labor. 



The value or cfiiciency of any implement, or machine, depends 

 upon its conformity to the laws of mechanical philosophy ; and with- 

 out an understanding of these laws, the farmer would fail to compre- 

 hend the principles which govern the draft of a plow, or the action 

 of any implement in use upon the farm ; he would be unable to 

 choose a good from a bad one, and ill prepared to use a good one to 

 best advantage, or to correct any accidental hitch in its working. 



